Movie Review | Total Recall: Action remake is one to wipe from the memory

Friday

Aug 3, 2012 at 12:01 AMAug 3, 2012 at 11:59 AM

Obvious but apt: Total Recall is completely forgettable. The original 1990 film, based on the Philip K. Dick short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, was tailored for Arnold Schwarzenegger - which is to say that Dick's themes of identity and alternate realities were reduced to bullet points while bullets dominated the screen time. Despite better actors and cutting-edge special effects, the remake is largely the same. It's weak science fiction wrapped in the too-familiar trappings of a post-apocalyptic film with an overemphasis on action.

Obvious but apt: Total Recall is completely forgettable.

The original 1990 film, based on the Philip K. Dick short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, was tailored for Arnold Schwarzenegger — which is to say that Dick’s themes of identity and alternate realities were reduced to bullet points while bullets dominated the screen time.

Despite better actors and cutting-edge special effects, the remake is largely the same. It’s weak science fiction wrapped in the too-familiar trappings of a post-apocalyptic film with an overemphasis on action.

In the beginning, the lead character, Doug (Colin Farrell), is practically a drone, trudging discontentedly through life. Meanwhile, the big, bad government is crushing the impoverished populace, provoking underground rebellions.

The dystopian landscape is suffused with grays and browns, and tinted with touches of Chinese architecture. Director Len Wiseman (Live Free or Die Hard) emphasizes the dankness and claustrophobia. The streets, whether dusty or wet, are crammed with empty souls.

The only hint of pleasure comes courtesy of a company called Rekall, which implants memories. You can be anything you want, and the sensation is real.

Doug gives it a try. Instantly, we are in the midst of an elaborate chase. Doug is now known as Hauser, and he is the idolized leader of the resistance.

Like that of Jason Bourne, his memory is shot. Pursued by the government, he dispatches baddies by the dozens.

We know only as much as he does — which is very little. The plot unfurls slowly, as the film constantly reminds us that what we see might not be real.

The script throws in gratuitous psychological jargon, such as paranoid dissociative break, in an attempt to sound profound, but it can’t resist action-adventure stock phrases.

No actor — not even those as talented as Farrell or Kate Beckinsale (the only one worth watching) — can make “I give good wife” and “If I’m not me, then who am I?” sound convincing.

The scenery is artfully done, and the film has some action sequences that, though not innovative, are staged with skill. The special-effects crew has crafted neat toys, including a video-camera system that should be duplicated in real life.

But to what end? When the baddies are exterminated, the film simply shrugs. What a waste for a project that wants to be taken seriously.